When In A Closet
by MudbludGranger
Summary: It is a well known fact that the TARDIS does not like Clara Oswald AT ALL. Have you ever wondered why?


Clara awoke with a start. For two reasons: One, her dream. She had dreamt she had become with a book series, her and The Doctor fell in love and became two creepy immortal things. Two, the TARDIS had forced her bed to start vibrating. Every morning at 6am it did that, and it was not pleasant. Quite annoying actually. The first few mornings she had screamed and cursed, the first morning she yelled so loud The Doctor had come running with his shirt buttoned up wrong, his bowtie half tied and a toothbrush in his hand with a mouth full of suds. She laughed when she saw him, he had obviously come running from preparing for the day ahead and tried to do everything at once as he ran. This morning, however, she groaned.

Her dream had been strange, yet somehow good, and the ones before it were positively brilliant. First she had dreamt she had been among the last to survive a strange war with a strange name that fought weird creatures that didn't exist. The ending had been funniest, however, but the things she had seen had been beautiful. Something no human could dream up when awake. What shining for planets in diamond formation, what buildings, and so many stars. Next she had dreamt The Doctor had gotten rid of the TARDIS and got a ship that actually liked her. She was called Cassandra. She was highly alive and often switched on screens just to speak to her or comment on something. She would wake up in the morning and a television screen would hop out of the wall and it would read, _"__Good morning Clara, cup of tea? The kitchen is ready to cook you breakfast.__"_Cassandra had always anticipated Clara's needs, and The Doctor's too. Then the dream had changed into a sort of nightmare. The TARDIS had started copying Cassandra, and was also speaking to Clara. It would read, _"__Go down the next hall and go through the first door on your left, you__'__ll find a room you__'__ll just love!__"_And when she'd get there, it would be a door that lead to no where, or a bottomless pit or something. Then the dream morphed into the last one. They were just speaking to a strange sparkly girl when dream Clara had started stumbling and Clara awoke to find her bed vibrating yet again. Could she ever get a good sleep?

"Good morning to you too," Clara grumbled to the TARDIS. She glared around as if it had eyes, and then stuck her tongue out at it. Then, all of a sudden as if her Cassandra dream were coming true, a screen emerged from the wall. It had writing on it.

_Clara Oswald, today is the day I make your dreams come true._

"Are you going to stop bugging the hell out of me then?"

_You wish. I__'__m going to bug you something horrid until you leave or die, but I have a plan._

"To kill me or what?"

_No, a different plan. Entertaining for me probably be a bit annoying for you. Anyway, bye ... peasant._

"Oi!"

The TARDIS had called Clara a peasant. Weak insult. It made her roll her eyes and laugh out loud. So the TARDIS was planning something? Right. Well. Good for it, then. Good for it.

The Doctor rose early as usual, his alarm waking him up. He turned it off before it could ring too loudly and reach any other room in the TARDIS. He never even had to set this alarm, the TARDIS always did it for him. Such a faithful ship she was! He wouldn't trade her for the world. She was his big, amazing, infinite ship.

_And I swear in that moment, the TARDIS was infinite._

He laughed internally yet again at the joke Clara had told him. Well it wasn't really a joke, more a pun. Taking a quote from a book and changing it up, replacing "we were" with "the TARDIS was". Either way, it still made him chuckle.

The Doctor dressed in his usual clothes, laying out his purple coat for when he needed it later. He liked going around in his waistcoat, it made him feel posh, and it sort of reminded him of Gilderoy Lockhart's clothes from AVPSY.

_This is my waistcoat. I wear a waistcoat now. Waistcoats are cool, _The Doctor thought to himself.

After spending about ten minutes staring at his chin in the mirror, then shaving, doing his hair and brushing his teeth, he set off towards the console room where he would either wait for Clara, or be greeted by her. She was usually up around this time, now, though he expected the TARDIS had got something to do with that. As he walked through the corridors he listened to the TARDIS hum, and he reached the door to the console room, but it was gone. And when he turned to leave, thinking he had made a wrong turn, the door was gone, too.

Clara made her way cheerfully to the console room about half an hour after waking. She approached the door and slipped through with ease, but instead of being greeted by a large humming console (that really didn't like her) she was greeted by her foot stepping on something and a loud, "OW!"

"Doctor?" Clara questioned. She had obviously taken a wrong turn, but why was The Doctor hanging about in a broom cupboard, with a mop falling on top of him and shelves covered in god knows what?

"Clara?" The Doctor responded. "You stood on my foot."

"Sorry," said Clara. "What are you doing in here?" she asked.

"Oh you know, just talking to the mop," he said lightly, casually, but sarcastically. "Took a wrong turn. Got stuck. Why are you in here?"

"Took a wrong turn," shrugged Clara. "Same as you. But I don't know about getting-" she had turned to open the door and let them both out but all she was was solid stone, and she faltered as she mumbled the word "-stuck," somewhat annoyed. She looked up at the ceiling as if she were looking into a camera. "Ha ha, very funny, let us out then."

"Who are you talking to?" The Doctor asked.

"Your - stupid - TARDIS," Clara answered him, trying to move about in the little space they had, to find a way out. Each word she punctuated with a frown as she tried to press to the left, the right, and then the left again.

"No ways out, I've checked," said The Doctor, and he too looked up at the ceiling. "Are you playing a joke on us? Well it isn't funny. Let us out."

Silence from all sides. No screens were about to pop up to talk to anyone now. Clara wasn't about to let that go forgotten, either.

"You know the TARIDS spoke to me earlier," she said. "It said it was going to make my dreams come true, that it had a plan, and it was an entertaining one for it, but not for me. Oh, then it called me a peasant."

"_She_," The Doctor spoke the word clearly. Clara was always calling the old girl _it_, no wonder it didn't like her. "Spoke to you? She's never spoke to me."

"Right, she," Clara muttered to herself, shifting again. "Yeah, she did. Wasn't sure what she meant, but I think I know what her plan was. Annoy me by locking me in a cupboard with you!"

"Is the being with me the problem?" The Doctor asked, confused for a second. Clara then realized it had sounded different said out loud.

"No, no no no no," Clara assured him, trying to pat his arm assuring him with a smile. That was easy enough, there was only about a centimeter between them. The smiling part was easy too, though she wasn't sure he could see because it was pretty dark. "The _problem_," she stressed the word, "is the being locked in a cupboard. Because it's not funny. And doesn't make any sense."

"Right," The Doctor nodded, hitting his head on a shelf. "OW!" he said, automatically his hand shot up to rub his head, and on the way his elbow hit Clara in the face.

"OW!" It was Clara's turn to say it.

"Sorry," said The Doctor hastily, and lowed his arm with difficulty. "You alright?"

"Yeah. You?"

"Yeah."

There was silence for a moment as the two stood there, looking around and at each other.

"So ..." said Clara.

"So ..." repeated The Doctor. Then it all happened swiftly. Clara turned to where the door had been and began banging in the wall.

"LET ME OUT!" she screamed. "OI! PLEASE! LET ME OUT!"

The Doctor was quick to copy, turning in the opposite direction and banging between two shelves, shouting similar things, even trying to make idiotic bargains with the TARIDS. It took about a full minute for the two of them to shut up, and they heard what sounded like the ship laughing. Clara scowled.

"This is _so _unfair," she said, turning around and saying it mostly to The Doctor's back as he struggled to turn in the cramped space.

"Hey, don't worry, we can make it fun," said The Doctor quickly. He looked around. "Hmm ... oh, I know! I spy with my little-"

"Please," Clara interrupted. "Don't bother. You'll embarrass yourself." But she grinned, and he grinned back. It was becoming easier to see each other now, their eyes adjusting to the darkness.

"Right, right," The Doctor said with a laugh. "Okay then, we'll just have to die in here, alone, cold, hungry and bored. Any last words then?"

"Yes, actually," said Clara, wanting to sound prepared like she was playing along on the little joke, and his little joke about dying. She looked around her for inspiration. "That ..." she laughed, trying to stop it coming out with a laugh. "That waistcoat makes your waist look feminine."

"Well, maybe I mean it to look like that," The Doctor defended one of his new favorite articles of clothing, and then laughed. "Actually forget I said that. It came out weird."

"As stuff usually does with you."

"Yes. Wait, hey!"

It wasn't funny. Yes it was. Clara was now teasing the hell out of him, and he was falling for it. Was this the TARDIS's plan? To annoy _him _rather than Clara? He doubted it, but it sure was looking like it. But he wasn't really annoyed, he was enjoying it. He even tried to tease back.

"Yeah ... well ... your hair all brown ... and hairy ..."

"Hair tends to be hairy, Doctor," said Clara. "Or is yours not? What's it made out of, grass?"

The Doctor narrowed his eyes sarcastically and said, "Oh har har." He paused for a couple of seconds. "So how are we going to get out of this cupboard?"

"Maybe we're not," Clara said dramatically. "Maybe we're doomed to be stuck in here forever." She grinned at him and he raised an eyebrow. She was enjoying herself, and she didn't know why she was saying or doing what she was. She had closed the centimeter of space between them. "We're like two idiot teenagers or something, trapped in a closet because they wouldn't do a dare or something in a game of truth or dare."

She looked at him with one eyebrow raised. He raised one too. He didn't get it. If Clara was at all honest, neither did she, because she didn't know what or why she was saying what she was. Anyway, the TARDIS said this would be annoying for Clara. Clara wasn't about to let the TARDIS win, she was going to try and make the most of it. Have fun.

_Make one of her dreams come true._

Not her dreams as in her life goals or anything, just one part of one of her dreams. Okay, so lay the facts down on the table. Clara was not in love with The Doctor, like her dream self. Maybe she would be, one day, a long way into the future, but not now. But then, on the other hand, she was a woman and he was a man, they were stuck in a tiny cupboard with barely enough room to stand, and they were pressed against each other and no choice but to stay like that. A situation that's pretty strange, but only one thing seemed to happen in one such as that. Something that Clara thought may positively terrify The Doctor, but then again may excite him.

"I think," she pressed on, and pushed even closer to him if that was possible, "It's time to make the snogging booth, a snogging booth."

"What do you mea-"

The Doctor didn't get to finish the sentence as Clara pressed her mouth onto his. At first he didn't know how he was going to respond, but then he did. He responded by kissing her roughly back, and she pulled away and grinned, an eyebrow raised.

"Get it?" she asked.

"Yes, I get it very much."

And they did it again, and again, and again. The stood, snogging quite passionately for several minutes, and it took a while for them to notice the door had appeared, but when they did they were quick to rush through it after breaking apart.

"FREEDOM!" cried Clara dramatically, as she waved her arms about in the free space like a lunatic. They had stepped directly out into the console room, and the TARIDS was positively having a party.

Her lights were flashing on and off, the monitor bouncing up and down, and music often played in danisnotonfire's youtube videos was blaring. On the monitor it read: _I tricked you into snogging, I am victorious, HAH! I got you, Clara Oswald._

When Clara read this she came back down to the reality of the TARDIS disliking her. She glared at it, but then smirked. She wasn't going to let a stupid little ship get the better of her. She laughed once, and then turned to The Doctor, who was staring at the screen with narrowed eyes. She spoke seductivly. Almost more so than she meant. And she spoke the words the TARIDS actually wanted to hear.

"I think we should do that again some time."

The TARDIS was gob smacked. Her jaw would have dropped if she had one. For a long time the TARDIS had been shipping The Doctor and his companions. She hadn't shipped him with anyone since Rose. Nope, not even River Song, daughter of the companion Amy Pond. She didn't ship that, even though she liked River. Anyway, she was still getting over Rose. But now, she was shipping The Doctor, whom she had shipped herself with for a while, with someone else. With Clara. That was the reason she didn't like Clara: The TARDIS was still, simply, after all this time, not over Rose Tyler and the tenth incarnation of the daft old Doctor. And not Clara was here and was making Whoufflé, as the TARDIS called them, a total OTP. Oh well. Everything has it's time, and the TARDIS was glad of what she made her OTP do.

The TARDIS was a proud ship, and also an even prouder shipper.


End file.
